Apple moth fight ready to escalate

The battle against the light brown apple moth intensifies this week when state and local officials meet to determine the best course of action against the pest.

Cathy Neville, Sonoma County's new agricultural commissioner, said she is meeting with state officials to determine each agency's role and to prepare ways to alert the public to the fight.

"The purpose is to do something that's environmentally safe but also allows businesses to conduct their business," Neville said.

Federal officials determined they can safely combat the moth in Sonoma County this year with the use of twist ties that give off a synthetic scent to disrupt the insect's mating cycle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees the eradication efforts in cooperation with state and county farm officials.

Critics, meanwhile, are asking the federal government to reverse course and downgrade the threat level for the moth, essentially ending quarantines and eradication efforts from Sonoma to Monterey counties.

The critics maintain that both the scientific literature and the experience of farmers in other countries demonstrate that the insect causes little damage and can be easily controlled through normal farm practices.

The moth, which originated in Australia, was first confirmed in California almost two years ago.

State and federal officials have deemed it a significant threat to agriculture and to a variety of native plants.

Twenty-two moths were found last year in Sonoma County. That represents a tiny fraction of the 40,000 moths trapped in California last year. Still, the discoveries resulted in the state placing a large section of southeastern Sonoma County under a quarantine that affects the inspection and movement of crops.

Even so, no actual eradication has begun here. The state did propose placing twist ties last summer in two Sonoma Valley neighborhoods, but dropped that plan after residents there voiced safety concerns.

Others disputed the threat posed by the moth and last year successfully opposed the state's plan to use aerial spraying of a synthetic-based scent, or pheromone, elsewhere in the Bay Area in an effort to disrupt the moth's mating cycle.

Neville, previously the deputy agricultural commissioner for San Diego County, took over the $132,132-a-year Sonoma County position last month.

She said she had considerable experience with pest quarantines during her 25 years in the San Diego agency and had managed its pest-detection programs.

After Neville was hired, state agriculture officials traveled to San Diego last month to update her on their plans to fight the apple moth in Sonoma County.

County supervisors in December wrote to urge the state to accelerate its efforts to put an eradication program in place for the current quarantine area, which extends from the intersection of Lakeville Highway and Stage Gulch Road to Vallejo.

About that time, federal officials announced their plans to use the twist ties where moths are found within the quarantine boundary. The chemical in the ties doesn't kill the moth but attracts the males, disrupting mating.

The public has until Jan. 23 to comment on the eradication plan, which federal officials maintain would have no impact on human health and "limited, if any," effect on other forms of life.

In the meantime, the USDA will "seriously consider" the petition, essentially a 107-page report, to downgrade the moth's status, said spokesman Larry Hawkins. No date yet has been set to render a decision.

State scientists last spring rejected the first written report by critics that questioned the moth's threat in California. The state staff members then maintained it would be irresponsible to downgrade the pest's status.

But Roy Upton, a Santa Cruz County resident and one of the petition's authors, maintained the moth is too well established in California to be eradicated, but farmers in New Zealand and Australia have shown it can be easily managed.

"Among pests, it's a very, very minor pest," said Upton, the volunteer liaison regarding the moth for the national advocacy group Citizens for Health.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat

.com.